The presidential proclamation on what types of steel and aluminum products, at what quantities, will be spared Section 232 tariffs says that the melted-and-poured requirement for goods under the quotas will limit transshipment and discourage excess steel capacity.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones has long argued that barring goods produced in FTZs from qualifying for USMCA tariff benefits makes no sense, if the goods would otherwise meet rules of origin, and that the restriction puts FTZ production at a disadvantage compared to Mexican and Canadian production.
Fourteen pro-trade House Democrats are asking Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to quickly advance discussions on how tariffs on Japanese and British steel and aluminum could be lifted. "[D]ownstream users continue to face astonishingly high prices in steel and aluminum," wrote the group, which is led by Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state.
Five Republican Senators filed an amicus brief on Dec. 15 with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging it to take up a case over the limits of the president's authority under the Section 232 national security tariff statute. The brief, signed by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., argues against a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit opinion spurning time limits imposed in the statute. The time limits are crucial to ensuring that "Congress makes the major policy decisions regarding the regulation of foreign commerce," the lawmakers said.
A recent Government Accountability Office report on Section 232 tariff exclusions on steel and aluminum noted that the Commerce Department has tweaked a number of procedures in its exclusion application and decision-making process, but has not updated the guidance on its website to let the public know. It recommended that the department do so.
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The Commerce Department will end 31 general approved exclusions from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, it said in an interim final rule. A review of public comments submitted after the GAEs were approved in December (see 2012100047) led Commerce to determine 26 steel GAEs and four aluminum GAEs no longer meet the criteria, it said. "As a conforming change to a recent U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decision, this rule also removes one additional steel GAE, Commerce said. The interim final rule takes effect 15 days after its publication date, which is currently scheduled for Dec. 9.
The leader of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on making it easier for domestic industry to win antidumping and countervailing duty cases and said that the de minimis statute needs to be altered, in a hearing designed to talk about how Chinese practices damage workers, businesses and the environment.
The National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones is asking FTZ-user companies and FTZ grantees to tell them if they hold aluminum or steel from the European Union member countries in their FTZs, and to talk to their senators and representatives about the fact that if there isn't language about FTZs in the proclamation rolling back the tariffs on EU metals, those tariffs will still be due when the metals enter into commerce.